Heaven or Hell?
by ermireallydontcare
Summary: Esme Platt chose to end her own life after losing her son. Now stuck in what she believes to be Hell, she reflects on the loss of her son and an earlier loss as well. But when she wakes to find an angel, she decides maybe this isn't Hell after all.


**You probably don't need me to tell you this, but I don't own Twilight. All these characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.**I was in hell. I had to be. There could be no other explanation. I'd taken my own life, committed a sin, and now I would pay for it for all eternity.

* * *

But what was I supposed to have done? I had lost everything. Every time I thought I'd found something worth holding on for, it had been taken away from me. Twice I had found something to hold on for, and twice it had been cruelly taken away from me.

My pain-idled thoughts of my second loss swirled around my mind, as the fire burned my body.

It had been the cruellest one. The one that had made me realize I had nothing left to live for. The one that had lead me to death, and to here.

The loss of my son.

* * *

I remembered the feel of him kicking inside me, as if he was eager to meet me. I most definitely was eager to meet him. Finally that day came, and I got to hold him in my arms at last. As I placed his head to my breast, I knew I'd done the right thing. Everything that had happened before no longer mattered - Charles, the pain and humiliation of our marriage. Looking at what I had gained from it all, it suddenly seemed worth it. Not something I would ever wish to repeat of course, not something I was proud of, but something I was glad I'd endured if it had brought me to this moment, and brought me the years I had ahead to enjoy with my son.

Except I was wrong. No years. No months. Not even a week. A day was all I got. A day we both spent fighting for his life. A fight we lost.

I watched him as his face turned blue and he struggled to breathe, I held him close and prayed the doctor I had phoned for would arrive soon. He arrived just in time to watch my son die. I refused to believe him. I sat in my chair clutching the tiny bundle to my chest, tears rolling unchecked down my face, refusing to let go, refusing to face the truth:

I'd lost him. I'd lost everything.

The doctor finally got me to place the tiny bundle that was, or had been, my son in the cradle. I listened but didn't hear. I was to numb for that. He kept talking to me in a low calm voice. I heard words like 'lung infection' and 'burial'. Suddenly I didn't want to listen. Without thinking I walked out the door and started running through the surrounding forest. I thought I heard the doctor shouting behind me but I ignored it, I didn't even look back.

I didn't want to listen to logic or reason. I didn't want to stay in that room, in that house, where I had finally allowed myself to dream again. Allowed myself to feel hopeful for the first time in years. Not now all those dreams had been shattered. Not now all hope was gone. Stolen from me in the very same room where I would sit by the fire cradling my stomach and imagining our future.

So I ran. I ran without thought or reason. I ran until I could run no further and I collapsed in a heap on the forest floor. I had no energy left.

I didn't know how long I sit collapsed on the floor crying, or how long I had run for. I didn't know had long it had been since he had died. Since my world ended. It could have been hours or minutes, time didn't seem to matter to me anymore.

I finally looked up. I didn't know where I was but I could hear water, I must be near one of the lakes. I followed the sound and found myself standing at a cliff-edge overlooking one of the great lakes.

Suddenly I knew why I was here. Why my legs had unknowingly taken me here. It was a sign. Not a sign of God, because God would not agree with my new plan. But why should I care, what had God ever done for me anyway? I had been a good person hadn't I? Why then did God seem to torture me?

No, it most definitely wasn't a sign from God.

But it was a sign none the less.

I had made up my mind. I had no reason to stay. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. For a few seconds I didn't move, my mind was decided, but my body was still less then co-operative, some part of me still wanted to live. In my mind's eye I saw my son's dead body lying in his cradle, forever asleep. That thought was enough to end whatever instinct to live I still clung to.

I didn't jump. I simply walked until I fell. Then there was nothing. And then there was pain. Then pain started to recede and I knew this was it. I would see my son again. Then pain came back. Worse. Like the flames of Hell itself. I knew where I was then. I knew I would never see my son again.

No! No! My mind cried to itself. Now I had the mental torture in my mind as well as the physical torture of the flames.

But what else was there to think of? Somehow my mind returned to the only other person I'd lost. My first loss - though he had never even been mine to lose.

* * *

The young doctor looked at me with his golden eyes, such an unusual shade, filled with compassion.

"So, Miss Platt, what exactly were you doing up a tree?" he asked, while setting the cast on my broken leg, but he sounded amused. Not like my parents, who had asked the same question, but in an exasperated way. The truth was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"I was hiding," I admitted. He looked at me confused.

"From what?" he asked, sounding even more amused now.

"My mother," he looked at me quizzically.

"And her sink full of dirty dishes," I explained. I waited for his reaction, I don't know why, but it suddenly seemed really important to me. He smiled and then let out a little laugh. A few nurses looked oddly at us. I guessed he didn't laugh often. I felt proud that I could make him laugh. I wanted to make him laugh some more.

"She never finds me in that tree you see. Though I guess she'll know where to look now, I'll need a new hiding place. Maybe I could dig a secret tunnel under our house." He laughed again at that. A surge of proud filled me. He tapped my recently set cast gently,

"Now then, no tunnel digging until your cast comes off." He was trying to sound serious but I could see the smile he was trying to fight.

"Ok," I agreed.

"I'll just go get your parents," he said, still looking like he was trying not to smile. A minute later he returned, with my parents following behind.

"You'll have to bring her back in six weeks to have the cast removed, but apart from that she'll be fine," he told them.

"Well, goodbye, Miss. Platt," he said to me, helping me off the hospital bed.

"Goodbye, Dr. Cullen," I replied. "I'll see you in six weeks," I said cheerily. He suddenly looked uncomfortable and said nothing, as my parents led me away.

It was ok. I would see him again in six weeks. That thought cheered me up no end.

But six weeks later, he wasn't there. The doctor who did removed my cast said he'd moved to Chicago unexpectedly. From some unknown reason I felt betrayed.

He had left me.

But he never left me completely; he still entered my thoughts periodically. Over time he became like my own personal angel, I thought of him whenever I lay silently crying besides Charles after he had hurt me. I wished my angel would come help me, like he had that day when I was sixteen. But of course he never did. He was nothing more then a memory, and a brief memory at that.

Yet here I was, in the bowels of Hell, still thinking of him, even though I was beyond help now, even an angel's, especially an angel's.

There was no help for me now. Why then, was the pain receding?

No I was wrong. This must simply be a different level of Hell, as a pain hit my chest ten times worse then what I'd felt before. I cried out with the pain, my heart beat faster and faster, and then it stopped.

Stopped?

Suddenly the pain all but went away, except in my throat. My throat was suddenly the centre of all my pain.

What sort of Hell was this?

"This isn't Hell," I heard a young-sounding sarcastic voice say. "Though it's close enough."

"Edward," I heard another voice say warningly.

A voice I recognized.

My eyes flew open and I went to stand up. I realized I already was stood up a milli-second after the thought had hit my mind. I looked around me in shock; everything was so bright and so loud. There were colors I didn't even recognize, and I realized I could hear the whisper of every leaf in the surrounding forest, every birdcall, and the soft tap of paws on ground as animals moved.

"Esme?" the familiar voice said timidly.

I spun round, too quickly, looking for the source. And there he was. My angel. Was this Heaven then?

"Definitely not Heaven, no," the other voice, the sarcastic one, said. My attention was drawn to its owner, stood just next to the angel, as pale as him and with the same eyes, but younger and with messy bronze colored hair.

Not Heaven, he'd said. But not Hell either, though it was close to Hell apparently. I refused to believe that, not if my angel was here.

* * *

**A/N: This was the first fan fic I ever wrote -wow that feels like a while ago now,though actually it was just a few months ago - I was doing a sort out of all my fanfics, and I debated whether to take this one-shot down. As I've re-written a more in-depth, and slightly different, version of Esme and Carlisle's first meeting for my fic, Carlisle and Esme: Their Lives and Love. However my nostalgic tendency won over, and so it stays up.**

**Still reviews would be greatly appreicated. I'd be intriguied to see what you think of my first ever attempt at writing fan fic.**


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